


The Advent of the Sword: Being the Ninth Tale of the Coin, the Sword and the Medallion

by LooNEY_DAC



Series: The Sword [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-16
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-10-05 21:51:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 10,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10317737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LooNEY_DAC/pseuds/LooNEY_DAC





	1. I: Between Then and Now

Wow, does this feel weird. I haven’t… [Ed.: Several sentence fragments follow, some unintelligible, all struck through. Obviously our chronicler had some trouble getting started again.]

I never meant to take this up again, after that last debacle with the Coin, but what’s happened over the last few weeks—well, let’s just say I need to get this down, if only for the sake of my sanity. And “Hey! Presto!” this book turned up.

Right. From the top, then.

Four of the musclebound thugs from the Juvenile Division rolled, bounced and flung me into the spartan interview room. This was becoming a depressingly regular occurrence since…

This story really begins when I was sure mine had already ended. My parents, my aunts and Uncle Fixit were flying off to foreign climes, leaving me happily ensconced on my fifth annual sojourn at a boys’ camp somewhere outside of Beautiful but Remote, Montana, population 2500 and 12000 cows, when their plane went down in the ocean. There were no survivors, and barely any wreckage. The worst part, though, was that I was only informed of this when my latest stay at Camp Whatchawannagofor was supposed to come to an end with my family returning to pick me up.

My family will never be back to pick me up.

The thought made, and sometimes still makes, me want to kill something—or someone. I haven’t yet, outside of self-defense, but—well, that’s for later.

As I said, it took four burly, strong grown men to wrestle my five-foot-nothing buck-twenty soaking wet [Ed.: height and weight colloquialisms approximating 152 cm and 55 kg] form into the interview room, where what I took to be yet another in a series of soulless bureaucrats was standing and waiting. The thugs put me in the room’s only chair, which was bolted to the floor, strapping me down so that I was helpless, as they imagined.

I am never helpless. There are only times when it’s more difficult for me to act than otherwise.

The thugs left at a word from the man in the grey suit, who smiled patronizingly at me, picked up a manila folder presumably containing my file from the nearby table (also bolted to the floor), and began reading aloud, starting with (ugh!) my full name, my age, my birthplace, and so on.

The real fun came when he got to my education. “Ph.D? Lit.D? Why not throw in an MD or a DVM in there?” Because my parents weren’t interested in my having to intern for however many years it would have taken my fellows to accept me, but that’s yet another story. They’d had enough trouble getting my theses and dissertations taken seriously, despite my own reluctance to get what were, in all honesty, vanity degrees. After all, what kid needs a Ph.D in anything, whether or not they could get one?

But my parents wanted me to have as many letters after my name as possible, at the youngest age possible, so I have five degrees—but can’t get a job selling matches or shining shoes, because I’m “overqualified”. In fact, I was supposed to start on my sixth after I came home from Camp.

“They say you’ve put more grown men in the hospital than any three other kids your age.” Ah, the false joviality of frustrated authority. I had heard it so very often in circumstances like these, usually after I fled the various “homes” they kept putting me into and they caught me trying to retake one or the other of the family homes that were now legally mine. My trustee hates me, though, and I return the favor, so any time I try to assert myself, he rats me out. I’ll have to try to take care of that soon.

I shrugged when it became obvious that he was actually waiting for me to reply. I hate bureaucrats, and I hate small talk. Small talk with bureaucrats is therefore not my most favorite pastime.

He slammed my file on the table. “If it were up to me, you’d be facing solitary right now!” After exhaling slowly, he continued, “But it’s not up to me. Someone from on high decided to place you in this new ‘Troubled Youth Program’ upstate; with any luck, once they bounce you back, those on high will start seeing things my way.”

I was still digesting this as he went to the door and opened it. “Come and get him, Mister Grethan.”

Another man entered, his broad-shouldered muscular mass barely contained by his suit. “Thank you, Mister Smooth. You may leave us now.” At the bureaucrat’s incredulous look, he continued, “Not only is the boy strait-jacketed, he’s also strapped to a chair that’s secured to the floor. Also, your men are watching through the mirror, so if anything goes amiss, they’ll be at hand.”

It was at this point that I decided to make my break for it. Escapologists have been getting out of worse contrivances for many decades, and I had had occasion to build up a great deal of experience in escapology in the course of my escapades. Having subtly worked my way free of the straps holding me to the chair, I leapt for the door, straining to be free of the straitjacket as well.

The bureaucrat was too fast for me; before I was half-way to the door, he’d slithered through and pulled it shut behind him. This left me alone in the room with this Mister Grethan.

As I shed the straitjacket, I could hear the goons behind the mirror scrambling to get into the fight; this was all to the good. I knew there would be a window between their departure and their arrival when I could bash through the mirror and vanish, but I had to take care of Mister Grethan first. This would be difficult, as he was built like a stone wall, but I’d taken bigger men down.

Mister Grethan smiled with the joy of a born berserker as he shed his suit coat and shirt, leaving him in his undershirt. “Well, now,” he almost purred, “this could be fun.”

I’m fairly small, so my only chance to beat someone as large as Mister Grethan is usually to keep the fight short, hitting hard and fast right out of the gate, because in a long fight, size matters. So it was here; my first flurry barely fazed him. Mostly, he blocked my best hits, taking the others just to show he could. Then he hit back, and boy could he hit! I almost lost it there, but I don’t give up so easily, so I weathered the storm, looking for spots to get my own blows in.

The fight went on like this (longer than it probably should have, now that I think about it), each of us going after the other relentlessly. I almost managed to knock him into the table a few times, but he kept recovering just in time to avoid it. Finally, he managed to grab my leg and throw me across the room.

As I lay panting on the floor, he loomed over me and yelled in triumph. “DID YOU THINK TO THWART ME, BOY?

“I AM MELEGRETHAN, MASTER-AT-ARMS TO ALAMANAST THE KING, LONG MAY HE REIGN!” Then he added, in a much graver and quieter voice, “And the day a cub like you can overcome me in battle, I shall no longer be worthy of my office.”

His standing there and ranting should have given me more than enough time to get back on the offensive, but— “Alamanast of the Realm?”

He smiled. “Yes, Young Protector.”

I’d thought I’d never be called that again…

TO BE CONTINUED


	2. II: Mission Commission & Briefing

The next few hours passed in a blur. I was taken to the notional Camp for Troubled Youth, which turned out to be… a Camp for Troubled Youth. Hm. Didn’t see that coming.

So, Melegrethan was a staff member for the Camp under the pseudonym of “Mel Grethan”. Though eye-rollingly obvious to anyone “in the know”, it was actually a decent nom de guerre in that it was neither too exotic nor too pedestrian, the two extremes fake names tended towards.

Anyway, after my orientation and associated events, I was officially given into Melegrethan’s charge, which was not unusual for a “particularly hard case” like mine. I would essentially be in his power until he determined and I proved that I was fit to enter the general Camp population.

The Camp was far more about building or rebuilding character than anything else, and everything was geared to that end. Mentoring was highly encouraged when not obligatory; one facet of this was the martial arts program, which Melegrethan ran.

Once Melegrethan and I were finally left alone, I nearly burst with the questions bubbling forth from my mind.

The very first thing I asked, though (which confused me to no end), was, “How is the Princess Royal?”

Melegrethan’s eyebrows rose. “There is no Princess Royal; there is only Princess Alamsta. And why should you ask after someone you’ve never met?”

Wait… “Wait—you’re Master-at-Arms to Alamanast of the Realm, Twelfth of that Name, and—”

“I am Master-at-Arms to Alamanast of the Realm, Second of that Name, Young Protector.” He said it gently, but it didn’t stop my heart from dropping to my stomach. “I was told of you by the First Protector, and you will be essaying forth from here in a series of sorties on behalf of Alamanast the Second and the Realm, as has been foretold.” He smiled. “And in the meantime, you’d best toe the mark, at least for the two years you have until you come into your own here.”

OK, this was confusing. “But if I came from the future of the Realm where everything’s alright, doesn’t that make any action of mine in the past Realm superfluous?”

“Would you risk that future Realm in order to find out?” Melegrethan replied.

OK, he had me there. “So, what am I to do, and how?”

“You must take up the Sword, but first you must prove yourself worthy—” he paused “—I know, again, but you must.”

I folded my arms. “I’m listening.”

Melegrethan knocked my forehead lightly with the swagger stick he carried around the Camp. “A little humility, boy, would go a long way in proving yourself worthy. Make no mistake: in matters of the Realm, as here, I am your superior.”

I grimaced as I rubbed my forehead, but said only, “Very well.”

“Now, for the specifics of your mission:

“Far indeed from the Realm we know and love were bred a scourge known to us only as the Scowrers. These foul Wyrm-worshippers have come forth in a great war-host, burning and pillaging all the way. No force exists in the Realm great enough to stop them… but they may be turned aside.”

“Only by a seeming show of strength that would overwhelm their hordes,” I said. I had dealt with the Scowrers before, and the thought of doing so again was less than pleasant. Worse, before I’d met them, I’d watched them at their uniformly cruel and vicious work from a safe distance.

“Try talking first,” Melegrethan ordered.

“OK, but it won’t work.”

“You’ll find you’re hardly in a position to do otherwise. Be that as it may, soon I shall send you into the Realm, and what you do there, for good or ill, must be done in exactly fifty-eight hours. That is, you’ll depart at exactly eight PM tonight and you must signal to return no later than six AM Monday morning. I would prefer that you be done earlier, of course.

“To get back, you must entreat His Majesty, and he must agree. Only then will I bring you back.”

“So, how is it in your power to bring people across the Void of Worlds?” I must admit that I asked the question rather suspiciously; I’ve had more than a few run-ins with masters of the art of deception.

“Thus,” he said, right as the clock struck eight, and the world faded into the dizzily swirling greyness that meant I was headed to the Realm.

The First Protector was conspicuous by his absence; it probably meant that I was stuck with Melegrethan as my only guide. Had I truly done so wrong when I lost the Coin as to have yielded my status as Young Protector completely?

I had no time to consider the thought, for in another instant, I had appeared in the Throne Room of the Castle of Magnatharast, which looked in much better shape than it had been in the last time I saw it—probably half a millennium in the future. The King was seated in his usual place, but beside him stood a boy, rather than the girl I had half expected despite what Melegrethan had told me.

I bowed, as was proper, and the King gave a nod of approval before saying, “Welcome, Fair Stranger. I am Alamanast, Second of that Name, King of the Realm, and this,” he gestured to the boy beside him, “is my son and Heir, Perethegrast. Also, behold my daughter, Alamsta.”

The girl who stepped forth at her father’s words looked very much like the girl who for convenience’s sake I will refer to as ‘my Alamsta’, though there was something vaguely off about her. It was like I was looking at my Alamsta through a mirror with just enough distortion to be noticeable but not enough to be really noticeable, if that makes any sense at all. I cordially disliked my Alamsta; I could sense that I would not-so-cordially dislike this Alamsta.

“You have been given your charge by Melegrethan?” the King asked, worry creasing his noble features.

“I have, Your Majesty,” I replied solemnly.

“Then you must go, but take with you my son, that he may learn the ways of the Protectors.” Oh, great.

Perethegrast came forward, his smile friendly and unguarded. I sighed. Well, hopefully he could handle himself well enough that I wouldn’t have to drag his corpse back to his father anytime soon.

We left the Castle and walked down the road towards the Hand-Spread, the meeting-place of all the Realm’s roads. Perry, as he requested I call him, kept up a light stream of happy chatter about this being the first time his father had trusted him on a mission of such importance and his determination not to mess it up, but with a Protector at his side, how could we fail? And so on (and on and on and on).

We came to the Hand-Spread Stop, the inn at the Hand-Spread, and for once, the innkeeper was there to greet us. It being a fine, hot summer day, he offered us some Coolness on Ice, a signature drink of the Stop, and we thanked him profusely.

We had barely left the Stop down the thumb when the sounds of a Scowrer scouting party caught my ears. Wait, they weren’t supposed to be this close to the Realm! I tried to warn Perry, but before I could get more than a few words out, they were upon us.

They didn’t kill us out of hand, which confused me greatly. I was soon to find out why…

TO BE CONTINUED


	3. III: I Think I’d Better Think It Out Again

This was not good.

We were still alive, and I had no idea why: the Scowrers were neither known for taking captives nor for any reluctance to kill—in fact, my observations of them had shown that killing was a key part of their culture, as it was how the men showed their worthiness to reproduce. That Perry and I were captives and still alive was most disquieting.

They took us to a large assemblage of yurts, which were the preferred Scowrer domiciles. Each yurt was painted or embroidered with hideous scenes of carnage; these were the deeds of the yurt’s head occupant and their ancestors and/or clan members. The largest and most elaborately (and ghoulishly) decorated was, of course, the High Yurt, and our destination.

Once inside, we were hauled up before the Big Cheese, who was actually not such a bad guy, apparently. He and Perry got along like a house on fire right from the start, so I stood back and tried not to mess things up while they pow-wowed.

Unfortunately, I knew one major reason they got along so well: they were both second-in-commands of their respective groups, rather than the actual leaders. It wasn’t long before I was taken to another part of the yurt to see the true leader of the Scowrers: the War Witch. I had already caused the death of the War Witch who led the Scowrers against the Realm in that other time-frame, so I thought I knew what to expect.

Staring back at me from her place at the Altar of Pain was the self-same War Witch I’d faced before.

Why do I keep running into people I’ve already killed? On the other hand, this War Witch lacked the big ol’ scar that marked the one I’d been the death of, so maybe it was like the two Alamstas: just a case of ancestors looking like their descendants. Or, it might be that this was the same War Witch I’d overcome once already. Time would tell.

Well, Melegrethan had instructed me to attempt to talk them out of it before anything else, so I must, no matter how foredoomed to failure it was.

“You and your people are on the Reaving March,” I began. “Do you know what lies astride your path?”

The War Witch smiled unpleasantly. “Death, and life; victory and conquest. These are always astride the path of the Reaving March. But, yes, I know of the Realm and its doings; I may yet know more of it than you do.”

“The Realm is not for you to conquer,” I warned. “While they will not strike you if you stay your hand, they will not hesitate to throw their all against you if you strike them.”

“The prey never strike the hunters first; even so, the hunters must hunt. Such is the way of life and death; such is our way. We sally forth on a Reaving March, and we turn aside for nothing and no one.”

“If you attack the Realm, your people will die, not in their ones and tens, but in their hundreds and even thousands. You know this.” I kept my voice as calm, controlled and level as I could. One thing the Scowrers respected was self-control.

“Let the weak perish; it shall only make us the stronger for it.” Yep, there was the Scowrer dogma in its purest form.

“So the one left out of the hundred will be stronger than the hundred were?” I could not keep the scorn from my voice when I pointed her innumeracy out. “I do not think the Big Cheese agrees with you.”

The War Witch sneered at the mention of her superior-in-name-only. “He dances to my tune, and ever shall, until he dies.”

“Even at the cost of all that he loves and holds dear?”

“Such is the way of the Scowrer.” A gong sounded, and the War Witch smiled again, horribly. “It is time. Let the ceremony commence.”

Two acolytes rushed forward and grabbed my arms. The sinking feeling in my stomach grew worse.

The War Witch and her assistants went into a long series of chants and invocations, lighting candles and snuffing them out in a very specific sequence, and even a dance number. Finally, they laid a small fire on the Altar of Pain, and the War Witch put it out with a container of fresh blood, including some of her own.

A huge cloud of smoke exploded from the fire, dimming the whole room and filling it with a horrible odor. The War Witch shrieked one final incantation, then held her mouth open wide.

The smoke coalesced into the form of a dragon before pouring into the War Witch’s open mouth. Once she’d inhaled the entire cloud, she opened her eyes again. A sickly green light shone from the backs of her eyes, the first sign of the Condominium.

“Now,” she proclaimed in the Voice of Legion, “as we bring death to the Realm, let us bring death to its Protector!”

The acolytes were quite disciplined. Not many people will keep clinging on to you after you break their feet, but they did, so I escalated, and fled thereafter. The others gave chase, but the yurts were interlinked in a maze of fabric corridors that I used to my advantage.

So much for my escape; now, to find Perry. I stealthily retraced my winding path to the head yurt.

Perry was, not unexpectedly, right where I’d left him, and he seemed to have made considerable inroads with the Big Cheese, who was now openly questioning whether blind obedience to a War Witch was fitting in a Big Cheese like himself. Again, I kept silent as I rejoined them, trying not to muff things up as badly as I had with the War Witch. I couldn’t rid myself of the notion that if I’d said something just a little differently, she or her acolytes would have come around. But I hadn’t.

Perry had just about convinced the Big Cheese when the War Witch stormed into the room, trailing her acolytes in her wake. The Big Cheese was a very brave man; when he saw the War Witch, he snarled and stood proudly from his High Throne, saying, “So, you have come to face me at last!”

The War Witch was unsurprised by this greeting, replying, “All is proceeding as it must, O Head of Men.”

“Then let what proceeds be the death of one of us!” the Big Cheese roared back.

Apparently, when Scowrers openly fought amongst themselves, everything was formalized and conducted According to Hoyle (though no less violent for all that), and what I’d seen was a formal challenge and response in the Grand Old Tradition. It had come down to a duel between them, to the death and winner take all.

The two challengers led everyone else from the head yurt to an open yard surrounded on all sides by yurts, and dozens more of the Scowrers flocked to see as they passed.

The battle was brutal and ruthless, but terribly short. The War Witch wielded a short spear not unlike an assegai, while the Big Cheese used a tomahawk-like hatchet. They struck at each other a few times before the War Witch let her guard sag a little, the Big Cheese swooping in to take advantage with a slice that should have cloven the War Witch’s head in two.

Perry and I watched as the Big Cheese slowly toppled back, dead. The War Witch smiled, the deep cut bisecting her face still streaming with blood. “The weak are purged!” she screamed, raising her bloody spear, and the crowd roared in approval.

“We need to run,” I told Perry, “now.”

The bitter taste of failure filled my mouth as we silently fled the celebration of death…

TO BE CONTINUED


	4. IV: Striking at the Scowrers

As we fled the Scowrer camp, striving to avoid their notice (and thus their spears), I pondered the grim challenge ahead. The Realm of the moment had no force capable of even briefly holding back the Scowrers; turning them back was essentially the stuff of pipe dreams, yet that was what we must do if the Realm was to survive.

Having faced them before, I knew what they were capable of; I’d had to arrange a “Sleeping Beauty” scenario then to avoid what seemed inevitable now, and that when the Realm was larger and more prosperous than this iteration was at present.

Oh, yeah. I should explain what Melegrethan and Alamanast II had told me about the Realm of their era. Well, there were less than half as many inhabitants in the Realm as under Alamanast XII, which wasn’t really surprising or anything. The real problem was that the Realm was almost destitute, due to almost a decade of bad harvests and failed attempts to diversify in the wake of the bad harvests. The Royal Treasury had been poured out almost entirely, but the people were still poor, scrawny and underfed: decidedly not what you’d want in an army that must win or die to a man.

I knew, of course, that things would improve, if given the chance; the Realm I’d visited in the far future was prosperous and happy. The intractable problem was that the chance would not be given if the Scowrers came. I had to find some way to stop them, and soon.

As I was thinking all this, we’d made our way almost all the way back to where we’d been caught. There was no noticeable pursuit, which would have involved projectile fire from the pursuing Scowrers and therefore been quite noticeable indeed. There was an ache in my side from all the running, so we caught our breath for a moment behind some convenient hedges, while I went back to fruitlessly pondering the mess I’d put us in.

Coming out of my abstraction, I noticed Perry looked like he wanted to say something. I decided I’d head him off at the pass, but in the event, we spoke in unison. “I’m sorry.” And thus followed a classic comedy routine where we echoed each other back and forth until we finally came to an understanding.

Now, I was apologizing for bungling the whole get-the-Scowrers-to-go-away negotiations, but it turned out that that was what Perry was apologizing about as well. He seemed to think I’d have done a better job with getting the Big Cheese to go against the War Witch more effectively. I was certain I couldn’t have, because I knew the shameful truth: because part of me had thought the whole thing a waste of time, I hadn’t really tried to succeed, essentially hobbling and sabotaging myself before I begun.

And now I had to deal with the consequences of my failure, including reassuring Perry that he’d actually done infinitely better than I, even if that meant knocking down what I suspected was a lurking hero-worship of Protectors and the Protectorship. We are all humans, and we all have feet of clay, so any such hero-worship was doomed. Hopefully, this way there would be less collateral damage.

I didn’t think I quite managed to kill the hero-worship, though. It might be a problem in the future, assuming I see Perry again, on some mission yet to come. It’s up to Melegrethan, I suppose, though he implied… Well, I’d better not get ahead of myself here.

At any rate, while I was talking things over with Perry, reassuring him that he’d done better than anyone could have hoped, I tried making a (probably too complex and obscure) shepherd-and-sheep analogy, which inevitably brought Alamsta’s berserker ram to mind, which reminded me of… sporks.

There had been very few things about the Realm to differentiate it from the world I came from. Sporks were a notable example. They looked freakishly like the spoon-and-fork combination cutlery after which they were named, but acted like land piranha, if piranha formed giant colonies like termites. The only thing that saved the Realm from being overrun by the little horrors was that they stayed in the forest, being reluctant to risk sunlight and the various avian predators of the open fields; and even within the forest, they were strictly territorial.

Territorial and voracious sporks… Rampaging Scowrers… There had to be a way I could use the one to dissuade the other from their present path. I needed more information, though, if my burgeoning plan were to make it past step one.

“Perry,” I asked the royal youth, “how restive have the sporks been recently?” I tried to keep my tone casual, belying the rising excitement I felt stirring in me. This could be the key to the Realm’s survival, or a hopeless distraction. I was decidedly hoping for the former, of course, though I knew the latter was a possibility.

Perry looked at me quizzically. “They’re not likely to trouble us on the way back, as they rarely transgress the roads. Mostly they keep to the depths of the woods.” His tone was teasing; probably he thought I had a phobia about them, which wouldn’t be terribly unreasonable. I didn’t and don’t, of course, but it wouldn’t be or have been unreasonable.

I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Yes, but is there a way to get them out of their tower-warrens and, say, out this way, ready to strike at some hypothetical group of raging warriors out to kill everything in sight?” I was really hoping we could find some way to lure or herd the sporks and the Scowrers into a collision course, but first, I had to get the idea across to Perry, who really wasn’t used to thinking like a warrior.

Perry’s eyes got huge as he finally caught my drift. “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Wow. I— I’d never have thought of that.” Yep, that hero-worship was still alive and kicking. Oh well; I’d see if I could deal with it after we survived the night.

The parley with the Scowrers had taken up most of the afternoon; in an apt metaphor for how time was running out, the sun was setting as we made our way back. By the time we could put my plan into action, it would be the dead of night: this was both good, as we could entice the sporks out where they wouldn’t venture by day; and bad, because… well, we would be in the woods in the depths of night. This was bad on a number of levels.

Before anything could be done, however, we’d have to report to the King. It is never a pleasant prospect to report failure to someone counting on your success, but at least I now had a plan to present to His Majesty, however half-baked. Also, I was returning with the Heir Apparent alive and unharmed, which lessened the failure by just a little bit. Anyway, we’d need permission from His Majesty to go into the forest, though Perry was confident that the asking would be a mere formality, and that our real problems would start with trying to herd the sporks.

Of course, the last time I’d been in the forest, the sporks hadn’t been the only hazard by any means. There had been the Terror Wings, and Striped Death Molds, but the worst of the lot had undoubtedly been the spooks and the illusions. Fortunately, the spooks and the illusions had been brought about especially to try to stymie me, so they shouldn’t be in the woods yet, I fervently hoped.

We’d soon see, at any rate…

TO BE CONTINUED


	5. V: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

For all my worrying about it, getting His Majesty’s permission to try to weaponize the sporks was so anti-climactic that it’s barely worth mentioning, especially since we also didn’t get any extra help for it. Perry was still optimistic and enthusiastic about it, though, and that made up for a lot. We certainly needed the enthusiasm.

I was also glad that, however badly I’d muffed trying to warn the Scowrers off, I didn’t have to tell His Majesty that I’d gotten his son and heir killed. It would have been a bit awkward. Fortunately, I’d brought Perry back all right, so there was nothing to worry about there—

Unless I got him killed trying to move the sporks, or trying to stop the Scowrers, or if any of a dozen other more or less likely mishaps happened. My mind loves spinning these little scenarios out for me ever since the Crash, and I really wish it would stop.

For future reference, herding and driving sporks are both incredibly hard to do. Not only are the sporks mean; they’re also stubborn and perverse. Apparently paranoia is a good survival skill even among swarm predators, because the sporks were loaded with it. This particular nest out-stubborned a Terror Wing over who got to strip a sheep corpse; the Terror Wing nearly added itself to the menu, but it moved off the corpse just in time.

We tried luring the sporks with a trail of food, but they just wouldn’t go outside their marked-out territory. What finally worked was simulating a forest fire, and burning their towers down. Perry was almost too enthusiastic in this bit, but when I mentioned the dangers of pyromania, he reined himself back in. But I wasn’t too harsh with him, nor would I have been otherwise, but there was no time; at last, the sporks were on the move.

The horde we’d picked to transfer was huge; I’m still not sure how they all fit in those towers. They spread over the grassy plains beyond the Realm in a wide fan, slowly moving in a direction that wasn’t too off from whence the Scowrers would come. Every so often, we heard the cries of some unfortunate plains critter caught in the swarm’s way, but the swarm pressed on. Now, we just had to get the Scowrers to cross the sporks’ path, and—

And disaster. The sporks suddenly sped up and headed straight for the only clump of trees in twenty miles. There was no way the Scowrers would go anywhere near it when making for the Realm, but there was equally no deterring the sporks from settling in the terrain of their choice. It looked like all of our hours of work had been in vain. Even Perry looked a trifle discouraged by this turn of events.

It was at this moment that Princess Alamsta arrived, demanding an update from us in the name of the King; I must admit to being amazed at the precision of her timing so as to maximize our discomfiture. We gave her such intelligence on the matter as we could, and she insulted our intelligence in every way possible. This was pretty standard for Alamsta, as I was learning.

Alamsta was with three or four couriers; she quickly and efficiently wrote out our report and sent one of the couriers off with it. From her sporadic and snarky conversation with her brother as she did so, I gathered that she had been charged with similar duties before, though not in any circumstance so dire as this one was.

Unimpressed though she was with our companionship, Alamsta also didn’t appear to be leaving our side any time soon. It was as if she wanted to ensure that she could needle us for as long as possible, though when asked directly about it, she remembered that she also bore a message to us from the King.

“His Majesty has sent what force we have to the Hand-Spread Stop,” Alamsta said. “They’re currently fortifying their positions there, and will be at your disposal should you need them.” Her tone indicated that she thought that our need of them would be certain; I was unhappily afraid that she was all too right.

Perry, still optimistic, posited that we could drive the sporks back into the Scowrers as they rode by, which wasn’t the worst idea ever, though Alamsta immediately mocked it as such. She was quite nasty about it, too, going on unnecessarily about how iffy the whole thing was.

In case I haven’t mentioned it before, there are several distinct differences between the daughter of Alamanast II (who was currently berating us) and the daughter of Alamanast XII (who I’d met on my earlier/later/whatever trips to the Realm). One of the chief among these differences is that, while she can be acerbic and sarcastic with the best of them, the Alamsta I’d met first could actually be both kind and sympathetic. With this Alamsta, I saw no trace of what used to be known as “the finer feelings” in her makeup. Instead, there was arrogance, disdain, hauteur, indifference (or worse) to the suffering of others, and a smug self-certainty. This mix did not bode well for my future dealings with her.

“We should probably go and see about the force at the Hand-Spread Stop,” I told Perry, who was looking pretty steamed at Alamsta’s casual dismissal of his idea. I was hoping to forestall more sibling rivalry, so I asked Alamsta if she’d deign to aid us by looking over the other side of the patch of trees for anything that might help us spring the sporks on the Scowrers, and, when asked in a sufficiently groveling way, she acceded.

A few minutes after she’d set off, Perry and I started on our way to the inn. We hadn’t gone far, though, when a thunder of hooves behind us sent us scrambling into cover. It was the Scowrers, of course, and not simply a small scouting party, but their main force. Now was when the sporks would have been most useful against the horse-bound hordes, but we were out of position to make the attempt to rouse the little beasts, and there was no time to try to break for the spork nest.

The Scowrers rode on in rank after rank of death-dealing soldiery. As I’d known, even the most far-flung of them was nowhere near the patch of trees concealing the sporks, though, again, they certainly stayed between that patch and us. Alamsta’s party, last seen just beyond those trees, was almost certainly safe as well, then. I was glad I wouldn’t have to let His Majesty know I’d caused one of his children to ride off to her death, no matter whether I disliked her or not.

We needed to go down the hidden trails the shepherds used in order to beat the Scowrers to the inn, though the Scowrers made it easier for us by moving at what was barely a slow walk. Their leisurely pace spoke of their arrogance: they didn’t need to hurry; no matter how long they took, nothing we could possibly muster would stop them. With a great deal of luck, we could turn that arrogant expectation against them: a sharp enough defeat from those they so disdained would shatter their nerve—if we could, in fact, defeat them.

There were no natural barriers before the Hand-Spread, and once the Scowrers passed that spot, the whole of the Realm would lay open to them. Stopping the Scowrers at the inn was our only hope now; I just couldn’t see how we were going to do that, much less come through this alive…

TO BE CONTINUED


	6. VI: Defending the Inn Crowd

When Perry and I reached the Hand-Spread Stop, things were better than I’d hoped, but not by much. The Realm’s soldiery was small, but they seemed to have a few people who understood something about military engineering, so the fortifications they’d built were about as good as could be made using the available manpower in the available time. They would be mostly proof against the missiles the Scowrers liked to use over long distances, but probably wouldn’t hold against their close-in stuff too well.

Of course, everything here would only be a speed-bump to the vast number of soldiers coming our way, and we all knew it. Nevertheless, this force was ready to hold the inn and crossroads or die trying. We were only a dozen or so all told, so “die trying” seemed the more likely outcome.

I wondered briefly what excuse Melegrethan would give for my death; possibly, he would say that I’d run off, and my name would be put on a list of never-seen-again runaways. Certainly, there was no one else to miss me; as I’ve mentioned, my trustee hates me to the point where I think he’d actually celebrate my disappearance or demise. Hopefully Melegrethan himself wouldn’t get into trouble, though. He seemed a decent enough fellow.

As the soldiers introduced themselves to me, I noticed something striking about them: they were all knighted nobles, with not a commoner or even a squire among them. I asked Perry about it, and he explained that the only time commoners went to war was after mustering and mobilization, which would take at least a full week that we didn’t have. So the only “ready force” or “force-in-being” the Realm had consisted solely of officers: nobles who were ready to die for their serfs (as such).

The attacking Scowrers announced themselves, characteristically, with a hail of missiles from as great a distance as they could. As they did, they spurred on their horses until they were charging hard at our barricades. This was their standard one-two punch: keep the defenders occupied with the missiles and charge before they had a chance to react. Fortunately, our defenses were proof against their missiles, so we had our arrows and spears ready to blunt their charge.

I didn’t like having to cut down so many fine horses, but it was the most effective way to cripple the charge, and their riders, as well. The next wave would have to proceed on foot through the debris of the first, giving us more time to shoot them down. Even so, there were more of them than we had arrows, and we had fewer spears still, so the fight would still almost certainly go to them.

If only we had more allies, we might have a chance to stop them, but we didn’t. That was the thought that kept echoing through my head as I saw what we roused ourselves to do in defense of the Realm. Great were the little moments of heroism that I can still pick out from the confused morass of memory that the battle is in my mind—and was at the time. I could not do them justice in mere words, but take it as read that those dozen or so of us accounted for many times our number of Scowrers before the next phase of the battle began.

Gradually, over the noise of the battle, I became aware of a pounding that ever loudened, a repeated sequence of thuds that grew ever more urgent as the moments passed.

THUMP-THUMP-THUMP  
THUMP-THUMP-THUMP  
THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP

THUMP-THUMP-THUMP  
THUMP-THUMP-THUMP  
THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP

THUMP-THUMP-THUMP  
THUMP-THUMP-THUMP  
THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP

The call echoed from the woods into the embattled clearing. In the distance, I saw a pure white bunny beating out the rhythm on a hollow log. It was sending a message, but to whom?

“BAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!” With a thunder of hooves and a tremendous crackle of underbrush, a magnificent ram broke out of the woods and into the middle of the battle, followed by what must have been every last sheep in the Realm. The Scowrers caught in that first rush vanished with horrible cries under the torrent of running sheep.

You may think the intervention of the sheep funny; I can assure you that at the time no one was laughing. The heretofore continuous pounding had fallen silent at the charge of the sheep; its work was done.

I kept expecting the flood to end, but it didn’t. When I looked around, I saw why: the sheep were circling the inn in one continuous stream of stampeding mutton, their pace never slackening, forming a living wall to thwart the Scowrers. Some tried to break through anyway, but the sheep mowed them down relentlessly.

“You magnificent BAAA-ers!” I shouted at the sheep. Yep. That was what I said, and definitely not some other thing that might sound like it. Anyone who says any different is either mistaken or lying.

We kept launching spears at the Scowrers every so often from behind our barricades as the sheep thundered by, highlighting how ineffectual the Scowrers were at the moment, as their missiles bounced off our defenses. When it became obvious that the Scowrers couldn’t break the walls without getting to them and that they couldn’t get through our moat of sheep to get to the walls, the Scowrers broke off the attack and started back to their camp, presumably in order to tell the others that heavier weapons would be needed. Tonight’s attack was over, though.

Long after the Scowrers had disappeared down the path, lest the retreat turned out only to be a feint, the sheep slowly came to a stop, exhausted. I ordered the soldiers to bring them all the fodder the sheep could eat, which the soldiers were none too averse to doing. The treasury would repay the innkeeper for it, of course.

The night grew quiet for a brief moment until, when we least expected it, horrible screams echoed down the path to us. The screams sounded very like those the Scowrers had given out when they were crushed by the sheep, so I knew what had happened. Nevertheless, Perry and I went forth to confirm my ugly suspicions.

We reached the spot where we’d had to flee the Scowrers as they made their way into the Realm, and saw a scene of carnage. Not one of the Scowrers had made it past the sporks upon their return; very little indeed was left to say they’d passed this way at all, and what there was left was grisly indeed. Sporks can slice their way through most armors, so bone is less problematic for them than other predators. Let’s just leave it at that, shall we?

The sporks themselves were gathered into a mound of quivering fury unlike any I’d ever seen. In another moment, though, they seemed to melt into their usual horizontal mass, heading blindly for the nearest patch of trees. Fortunately for Perry and me, this clump was not in our direction, or we would have had to run for it, and I wouldn’t have given much for our chances at that.

Skirting the retreating mass, we called out for Alamsta and her party, who were over by the burned-out remnants of the clump of trees we’d originally sent the sporks into. The torches they all held told the story of what had become of the Scowrers well enough: Alamsta had finally roused the sporks into attacking the Scowrers… while they were fleeing, and no threat to the Realm at all. This did not sit well in my gut…

TO BE CONTINUED


	7. VII: Mission Complete (I Hope)

Alamsta’s little stunt with the sporks had definitely ended the Scowrer threat for at least a year, and possibly two; if it had been left to the efforts put forth by myself and Perry, the threat would have been fended off long enough for the spork thing to work as they made their next attack. Success either way, but killing foes as they retreat still rubbed me the wrong way, and I could tell Perry and the others felt the same.

It was vaguely possible that Alamsta had been trying to get the sporks to fall on the Scowrers’ rear and destroy them in that way, the sporks only deciding to move once the Scowrers were already on the way back, but something told me that that was not what had actually happened. It didn’t help that none of Alamsta’s group had said or would say anything about the incident to anyone. My gut kept gnawing at me regardless.

At any rate, with the Scowrer threat vanquished for the foreseeable future, there was no reason for me to remain, and so I informed His Majesty the following morning, after a good night’s rest from the battle, expecting His Majesty’s swift concurrence and a swifter departure. Instead, he insisted that I remain for the celebration that evening, which was full of loud people, small talk, good but not terribly plentiful food, and various and sundry entertainments. In short, mostly stuff I don’t care for.

It seemed Alamsta was annoyed throughout the whole affair, sending glares in my direction at random times all night. Yeah, she was none too happy about how the King had decided to “overlook her” in favor of Perry and me, but she seemed particularly put out by any praise of me or my actions specifically. Slaying retreating foes turned out to be actually illegal in the Realm, so the King was doing Alamsta a tremendous favor by downplaying or outright ignoring it, but try to tell her that.

Fairly late in the evening, King Alamanast finally got down to his actual purpose in holding this celebration: a speech. “From the time of Magnatharast, the Greatest of Kings, the One Who led Us to this Realm, the Kings of the Realm have had in their possession a thing of great power, to be wielded only by one who had proved his worth. Carinste-Nonthe was the first such worthy found, and he became the First Protector of the Realm. Now, we have one among us who, though not one of us by birth, has shown himself to be one of us in fellowship, and withal worthy despite his youth.

“Come here, Young Protector, and receive the Confirmation of your Office.” Everyone in the Great Hall turned to look at me expectantly, except Alamsta, who was glaring at me in annoyance.

Oh, great. I made my way to the appropriate place before the King and knelt. He asked me a litany of questions, the answer of which to each was “I do” or “I shall”. This was fortunate, as my mind and my insides were screaming so as to make even those brief answers difficult. Eventually, though, it was over.

“With this Sword, We dub thee.” He tapped me lightly with the Sword on either shoulder. “Now be it known that this youth is indeed the Young Protector, by deed, by approbation, by election, and by law. Only he may bear the Sword, until the time has come for him to lay it down.

“Rise, Young Protector, and take the Sword.”

I did. It had a weight to it that wasn’t physical but rather… well, not emotional. It was a weight of responsibility, and of proud tradition. It was my burden to carry, as it had been in the other times that I’d acted as the Young Protector. I just knew better what it truly meant now. Dealing in Life and Death was no game to be playing at, like a riddling contest, but the weightiest thing imaginable.

“Now, return it to the Reliquary, and We shall call upon Melegrethan to return you home.” Finally, the King’s face broke into its wonted smile, rather than the unnaturally grave expression he’d worn throughout the ceremony.

Ah, yes. The Reliquary. I could have walked the path to it blindfolded, at need. Would I find the Medallion in it, or were there yet surprises to be had? And would the First Protector finally show himself to me there, as he had before? If so, why had he not appeared during my transit to the Realm?

I repeated these questions to myself with each step I took towards the Reliquary, my heart hammering harder and harder as each moment passed without any trace of something out of the ordinary. All the way there, dread and anticipation mingled in my belly. Down the hall, up the stairs—where could he be?

The First Protector did not put in an appearance, but there was a note tucked inside the Reliquary that bore my title, so I read it, after carefully replacing the Sword in its proper spot. The Medallion wasn’t there, though, and I hoped the note would explain why. Instead, it read as follows:

“Young Protector,

“You are wondering that I should use this method to contact you, rather than the more direct methods I have utilized in the past/future/whatever. For now, this is the only method permitted me, though I hope you shall rectify that soon enough.

“You see, the tragedy that has scarred you has also poisoned you in ways you have not yet fully realized, and so I may not grace you with my presence. With time and the assistance of Melegrethan, and the missions upon which he shall send you, I am certain that the poison will be expelled. Until then, trust Melegrethan and the One Who has empowered us, and beware the power and the temptation of evil.

“I look forward to seeing you again.

“CARINSTE-NONTHE,  
First Protector of the Realm”

The signature was next to an elaborate seal whose device I recognized from the hilt of the Sword, from the Coin, and from the Medallion. I therefore surmised that this was the Seal and Insignia of the Protectors of the Realm, suitably modified in this case to signify the First Protector. So goes heraldry, no matter the world you’re in.

As for the contents of the note: this was certainly not what I had expected. Part of me was actually unsurprised, though; or, perhaps, less surprised. When I’d been in the Realm before as the Young Protector, I’d had several compulsions to show me what the “Protector-ly” (for lack of a better term) thing to do was. This time, there had been none such (or nearly none—I was still certain that if I hadn’t gone into the “leave the Realm alone” talks convinced they’d be fruitless, they would have borne fruit), and that had been troubling.

All the way back, I contemplated the short epistle from my predecessor. So, I would have to fight not only the enemies I was sent to combat in the future, but myself as well. I was rather more pessimistic about the latter fight than anything the former would throw at me.

And what had happened to the Coin? And, for that matter, the Medallion? Were they lost to me forever? I could not imagine that I wouldn’t have need of either or both of them in future clashes with evil. It was all very troubling, indeed.

King Alamanast the Second was quite ready and willing now to send me back to my origin, though Perry wasn’t particularly happy about it. Well, I had a feeling that we’d be seeing each other again soon enough…

TO BE CONTINUED


	8. VIII: Post-Mission Debriefing

“Well, that could have gone better.” The neutral tone in which Melegrethan spoke could have meant anything. Nor did his face give any hint as to his thoughts. I waited, barely daring to look at him, but the pause just grew longer and longer. I could hear the second hand of the clock hanging above the door ticking jerkily away in the deepening silence: tick-ick, tick-ick, tick-ick, tick-ick.

As soon as I’d returned, Melegrethan had informed me that we would have what amounted to a post-mortem on the mission, and I’d felt the weight of expectations (both real and imagined) slam onto my shoulders. Ever since, I’d been trying very hard to avoid projecting my own sense of failure into his few and cryptic utterances during the course of the meeting. Mostly, I’d succeeded, though only by focussing on how implausible my story was.

The problem with trying to explain a fantastic adventure after the fact is that they’re so, well, fantastic that what seemed a perfectly reasonable course of events as they unfolded becomes ridiculous and even nonsensical when you examine it in some other circumstance far removed from the fantastic. The pedestrian always trumps the fantastic in the human mind, to the point of denying reality if reality is too fantastic.

My recitation of what had transpired on the mission was not exempt from the aforementioned phenomenon, so with each new word about living sporks and magic Medallions and War Witchery, I felt less and less convincing, though I knew every word was true, and I knew Melegrethan knew it was true. It still seemed unbelievable in the retelling, sitting in a plastic chair at a plastic table in a plastic room being watched by the unblinking electric eye of a closed circuit television camera and the barely blinking eyes of Melegrethan—Oh, I forgot to write that bit down, didn’t I?

I should probably put down a bit more about the camp and its denizens before really getting into the session with Melegrethan, as I haven’t put it down previously. So, what follows shall be a brief overview of the Glenn Etheridge Pasternack III Camp for Troubled Youth.

The camp itself was out in the middle of nowhere, and was laid out like a military post; I later learned that it had been built as an internment camp for “enemy aliens” during the late war, before being purchased and renovated for its current usage. Its location was thus designed to make running away as unattractive as possible, while its faculties and amenities were made to encourage the residents to stay.

The campers (or inmates, or whatever you’d want to call them) were generally boys between the ages of ten and eighteen who had committed various minor crimes; these made up the bulk of the campers, and not a bad lot, all told. Generally, they just needed the “straightening out” that was the camp’s purpose. Then there were some, like me, who had been placed in the system against their will and could not or would not accept that placement peacefully, but these were by far the minority.

I would like to note here that any violence I committed was against officials of the system, rather than what might be termed civilians. Whether or not that makes me as guilty as some others in the camp who were categorized along with me as “hard cases”, I leave it to the reader to decide.

The staffers were a varied lot, but mostly they were men in their late forties and early fifties. The head of the camp was a woman, and it was rumored among the students that she was the reason that so few of the staffers were women, either through jealousy or other interpersonal conflict, or through some weird internalized misogyny on her part. Of course, word-of-mouth rumors are generally not worth the paper they’re printed on, so I took them with a grain of salt.

At any rate, one of the youngest staffers in the camp was one of their “success stories”: a former resident of the camp, now in his early twenties, and the head coach for various team sports. He was also rumored to be a government spy, a communist saboteur, a convicted murderer using the camp as an alternative to incarceration, and a number of other such bizarre things. I discounted these rumors as I discounted the others, but still there was something about that one staffer that had the hairs on the back of my neck rising whenever he was around, and some odd sense of familiarity to him that I couldn’t quite place.

The camp was thus not unlike a private school for boys, though with no defined semesters or terms. Supposedly, there was a sister camp somewhere that served a similar function for girls, but we boys in the camp never saw any indication of its existence, not that a certain element amongst the older boys didn’t try to suss its whereabouts out.

As I mentioned earlier, the staffers were encouraged to assume the role of mentor to one or more students whose interests fell in line with their own; this was especially so for the “hard cases”, where the mentoring could take the form of extensive one-on-one sessions mixed with other disciplinary measures not unlike those employed in basic training. As this would provide almost the perfect cover for my intended role, Melegrethan had put in for such a mentorship role, and had had it granted him.

Our sessions were monitored with closed-circuit TV cameras, so that any staff misconduct would be found out immediately, but not microphones, so that the sessions could remain between the participants, though some of the staffers preferred to record their sessions instead of relying on notes. I was therefore able to give a full and complete account of the course of events after I had entered the Realm without fear of being accosted by men in white coats.

In this first session, Melegrethan maintained a disconcertingly sphinx-like attitude, which again did nothing to alleviate my lingering sense of guilt over my failure to talk the War Witch or the Big Cheese down. Once I had finished my recapitulation of the late mission, and he had delivered the statement opening this part, I sat silently, waiting for him to amplify his response for what seemed like three or four eternities.

“Thank you for your report, Young Protector,” he said at last. “I shall consider what you have told me and discuss this further with you as necessary over the next few days. For now, however, you are dismissed. Proceed to the cafeteria for your mess and be back in one hour for further duties.”

So I left, my insides still churning so that I thought I wouldn’t be able to choke down a thing. Of course, once I was in the cafeteria, the various delightful smells of food awoke my stomach to the fact that it was more or less empty and needed to be filled right now, thank you very much.

I looked up from the cafeteria line to find the disturbing staffer looking at me intently, his expression one that I couldn’t decipher. That nagging sense of familiarity struck me again, though I knew we’d never met before my arrival at the camp.

All of this was most confusing, but I pressed ahead in the line and strove to concentrate on the here-and-now rather than worrying over potentialities. My stomach decidedly agreed that concentrating on the business of eating would be most satisfactory.

THUS ENDS

The Advent of the Sword

Being the Ninth Tale of the Coin, the Sword and the Medallion

THE STORY CONTINUES WITH

Realms Above

Being the Tenth Tale of the Coin, the Sword and the Medallion


End file.
